


Get the Words Out

by OmniscientOranges



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coming Out, First Kiss, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, John Winchester's Journal, M/M, it only references the nun case though this is like, the reason john sent him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28750089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmniscientOranges/pseuds/OmniscientOranges
Summary: Dean tells Cas about John Winchester’s A+ Parenting, a boy, a crappy motel room, and the one thing he wants.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 14
Kudos: 151





	Get the Words Out

It's after. After all of it. After the empty, after the tearful hugs, after relieved hellos, after words still left unsaid, after the _goodnights_ and _I'll see you in the mornings_. Just, after. It's only Dean and Cas sitting at the bunker's kitchen table now, and Cas gets up to walk to his room without a word (because he thinks he's been playing it off pretty well but really he's scared out of his mind to be alone with Dean, scared for the other shoe to drop). Dean gets up too, and Cas' heart flips when he realizes Dean is _following_ him down the hallway. 

"Hey, hey, Cas, wait. Hold on a second," Dean asks, reaching out to pull on Cas' arm to get him to turn, but his hand stops short and only hovers. Somehow, that stings more than anything, the _almost_ contact. Cas puts on a brave face and turns to Dean regardless. 

"Yes, what do you want, Dean?" 

Dean looks conflicted, then sighs and opens the door to his room (when did they get so far down the hallway?) and moves to sit down on the edge of his bed. 

"Cas could you uh, could you come here?" Dean pats the space on the bed next to him and gives Cas a tight smile. Cas looks wary, but he still trusts Dean with anything, _everything_ , so he closes the door behind him and sits. 

"I gotta tell you something, okay? And it might, it might not be exactly what you're expecting to hear but it's-" Dean cuts himself off and looks down at his shoes. "I gotta say it first, before I can say anything else, alright? I just, I gotta tell you _this_ first." 

Cas nods easily and fixes his eyes on Dean's face, "Alright, I'm listening." 

Dean nods once, short, and starts, "One time, um, dad dumped us- me and Sam- in Connecticut for a few months. I think Sammy was maybe, I dunno, twelve? And we stayed at this hotel with a heater that kept breaking down and a bad lock on the door." 

Cas nods again and gets a painfully soft look in his eyes that Dean can't look at, not quite yet. Cas wants to ask _what does a crappy hotel room in Connecticut have to do with anything, Dean?_ But he sees the fraught expression Dean's wearing and decides that, whatever it is, Dean's got a damn good reason to make the connection. So, like he said he would, Cas listens. 

"Right and uh," Dean swallows hard, keeps his eyes trained on the floor, swallows again, and says, "There was this guy I knew that came around the room sometimes. He- you know I, I don't even remember his name." Dean huffs out a laugh over the lump in his throat to try and break the tension, but it just ends up making the tears he's been holding back for so, _so_ long inch closer to the edge of his eyes. 

"But he had- he had this really _cool_ car. I think it was a 71' Challenger. Bright red, fast as anything. But I'm kinda gettin' ahead of myself,'' Dean looks up from the floor and straight at the wall, but he isn't looking at the wall, not really. He's remembering a car, and a boy, and distantly, the worst night of his life. _Gettin' ahead of myself again, where was I? Right._

"Before that, when we got to school there the first day, I walked into whatever class I was stuck in at 8am and sat in the back because, ya know, we never hung around long so I didn't plan on learning much anyways. Didn't plan on making any friends either but, well," Dean actually smiles a bit at this. This part of the memory is fonder, afterall. "So I'm leaned back in my chair with my feet propped up on the desk getting the stink eye from the teacher already and this guy next to me he just, he just says hi to me, and he introduces himself and for some reason, I dunno I just- I just start talking to him. And he was nice and _funny_ as hell so I decided 'yeah, yeah maybe I can have a friend. Just this once.'" Dean shakes his head, and Cas knows that's the head shake that means _you idiot, what were you thinking, don't you know you don't ever get nice things?_

"So he started coming around the room, right? And usually we'd just sit and watch old westerns or whatever crap was on public access and bitch about school or life or something, but um, one night-" Dean stops looking anywhere, and closes his eyes before he continues. "One night, Sam was at the library I think, doing nerd stuff and, and the guy was over and we just- we were just sitting at the end of the bed watching tv. And then he-" Dean screws his eyes shut tighter and hot tears spill out of the corners, "He just- he just leans over and _kisses_ me. And it takes me a second and then I just, I push him off of me and I say 'what the hell do you think you're doing, you know I'm not that kinda guy I don't swing that way,' just all the- all the usual crap. And he doesn't even listen really he just pulls me in and kisses me again and I-" Dean balls his fists in the rough fabric of his jeans and doesn't even try to stop crying, doesn't think he could stop crying at this point. He takes a sharp, deep breath in because he knows the next few words are going to knock all the air out of his lungs. 

"Cas, I- _I kissed him back._ I kissed him back because I wanted to, because I _wanted_ to kiss him and I didn't _care_ that he wasn't a girl, it didn't _matter_ , I don't think it _ever_ mattered. And then he starts to take off my shirt and then, well, you can probably uh, see where that leads. But- but the thing is that, it _didn't_ lead _there_ because-" Dean chokes down a harsh sob because he _has_ to say it he _has_ to get the words out because it feels like if he doesn't they'll rip through his chest like knives or like claws or like bullets. As it were, the next words weren't sharp or jagged, they were hollow and whispered, " _He_ wasn't supposed to come back that night. He was supposed to be gone another week on a hunt he- he _wasn't_ supposed to come back." 

Cas feels his blood run cold in a way it never quite had before, but it feels all too familiar just the same. 

Dean, eyes half open through the tears, keeps talking, "And he walked in and he was so, Cas, he was _so mad_ you- I'd never seen him so mad before. And he wasn't, um, he wasn't scream and throw things and throw _you_ mad, he was ice cold, dead silent mad. And the guy knew what was happening so he got his clothes and he left right away and when the door closed dad he- he just looked at me. And I'd never seen him look at me like that like he-" Dean finally lets a broken sob dig it's way out of his throat as he feels the tears from his face drip onto his forearms, "He looked so _disgusted_ with me, like he was disgusted that I was his son. And he stared me dead in eye and said- he said 'boy, I ain't- I ain't gonna-" Dean brings his tear christened forearm up to his eyes to wipe away fresh tears, and he's almost too distraught to speak now, but he has to finish the sentence. _Needs_ to, because he's never told anyone this, never wants to again, so he has to say it all now. 

"He looks at me and he says 'boy, I ain't gonna raise no queer son. You understand me?' and I said,'' Dean's posture straightens a bit, an echo from that moment, "'yes, sir, I understand' and he nodded at me and walked out of the room." Cas wants to reach out to comfort him, to _fix_ something for him for once, but he knows this is a hurt that can't really be fixed. 

Dean takes a long breath out, "And then we left the next day. Never came back and, I never saw that guy again. But dad, he looked at me different after that, treated me different. Worse. He sent me on my first solo case a few months later but I- I think he just wanted to get rid of me. Like he couldn't bear to look at me, look at what I _was_. There weren't any more guys after that. Even after dad died I still couldn't- couldn't bring myself to do that, even though I still _wanted_ to I just. I couldn't." 

Cas feels a tear roll down the side of his face, and he realizes he was so focused on hearing every word Dean was saying he didn't notice he had started crying too. He wipes his face with the back of his hand and says, "Dean, you know tha-" 

"I'm not finished yet, Cas. Please, just- just let me finish, okay?" 

"Okay. Okay, Dean." 

"What I'm trying to say is, I wanted there to be other guys, but I never wanted another guy more I wanted- more than I wanted _you_ , Cas." Dean finally looks up to meet Cas' eye. 

"I wanted, _want_ you more than I've ever wanted anything else, and I guess, hell, I guess you do too." Dean laughs a bit in disbelief, and reaches, timidly, for Cas' hand where it sits between them. Cas thinks, _since when has Dean Winchester ever been timid about anything?_ That is, he thinks that up until the moment Dean's fingers wrap around his palm and then all he can think is _Dean Dean Dean Dean Dean_. Cas looks from their loosely intertwined hands up to Dean's face, back to their hands, back up to Dean's face, back to their hands _again_ , then, finally, landing and _staying_ on Dean's face. Dean's still crying, but he's also _smiling_ and not for the first time Cas finds him so, so beautiful. Cas smiles too, and if he were in Dean's head he'd know that Dean finds _him_ beautiful too, always has actually. 

"Dean, can I talk now?" Cas asks, half serious and half teasing. 

Dean teases back, "Depends, what do you wanna say?" 

Cas brings his free hand up to rest on Dean's cheek, "I want to say, that despite what your father might have believed, there is absolutely _nothing_ wrong with you. And, Dean, even if there was, well," Cas' smile widens and he leans closer to Dean, "I'll still love you, always." 

Dean looks relieved at that, like he'd been carrying a weight on his shoulders his whole life and only now did someone finally tell him _it's okay, Atlas, you can put it down now._

"I love you too, Cas," Dean breathes, and leans forward to close a gap he hasn't closed since he was a teenager. Cas meets Dean in the middle and closes that same gap for the first time in his long, long life. 

When they finally pull apart it's only slightly, still resting their foreheads together. Cas pulls back a little further and tilts his head a bit to the side. Slowly, he moves his hand up to push off Dean's jacket. 

This time, It _does_ lead _there_ , later.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea post 15.18 and pre 15.20 and all the j*hn posting reminded me of it so, here we are
> 
> Come find me on tumblr, where I maintain a burning hatred for john winchester: omniscientoranges.tumblr.com


End file.
